


No Excuses

by waltztangocache



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Chicago Firefighters (Blaseball Team), Family Dinners, Family Drama, Fluff, Gen, M/M, past Tilldec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28414134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltztangocache/pseuds/waltztangocache
Summary: Sundays were always Suzanne household family nights, but the first Sunday of the month went unspoken as mandatory. Tour schedules were altered, work dinners postponed, on-call days asked off or traded, and if Declan truly was set to be across the country, the answer always came, “Well then, how about Monday instead?” Now that they were between seasons, there wasn’t any point in trying to get out of it.(There are three constants in life: death, taxes, and awkward family dinners.)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 26
Collections: We Are Fanwork Creators





	No Excuses

**Author's Note:**

> Finally publishing a Blaseball fic after having spent the last 5 months thinking about it on a daily basis feels good
> 
> This was inspired by some character concepts we came up with in the Firefighters Lore Camp discord, as well as Declan's wiki entry which says that he's from the real town of Schaumburg, IL - that detail is extremely funny to me and led to me pouring as much suburban midwestern energy into this as I could.
> 
> Much love to ffs camp for the encouragement and ideas, and special thanks to Thursday for the... motivation lmao that shit was genuinely very helpful.

The natural state of the universe was this: on the first Sunday of every month, the Suzanne family assembled into the dining room of the family home in Schaumburg, Illinois for dinner, a movie, and, depending on how late it got and how successfully Sue Suzanne pressured her children, a night spent on the family room couches.

Ok, well. Hypothetically speaking, there was a family dinner at the Suzanne household every Sunday night. The thing was, the Suzanne sisters had turned from ambitious children into busy adults with careers that didn’t have pause buttons attached, and that meant the number of Suzannes in the house on a Sunday tended to vary pretty wildly. Laura was often on call on Sunday nights, liable to be called away from the dinner table to do... whatever a trauma surgeon does (trauma surgery?). Maggie usually made it, but she couldn’t help missing a dinner every month or two for… advertising partner things, and even if she was there Diego and the kids weren’t always. Josie was the real scattershot, always getting pulled away on tours and sending texts along the lines of, “Love from Houston,” or, “Playing in Toronto tonight - missing you guys.” Even Sue herself had to cancel a few times - she did on-scene reporting for WCHI Channel 4, and, well, sometimes there were scenes to be on.

Declan had plenty of his own excuses, and these days most of them were even real. To everyone’s surprise (though his mom would never say so), Declan had turned from a slacker teenager into someone with a pair of extremely high profile careers, someone who had been chosen for service by a goddex, holy shit.

(This had been a point of tension for a while, actually. Declan’s sisters all had natural, bone-deep hustle, had been three-extracurriculars-and-volunteering-on-the-weekends kind of teens, and Declan… hadn’t been. And here he was, the only one of them with a Wikipedia page to link in the family section of his mother’s.)

The point was, Declan was a Firefighter now, which meant he spent 4 nights a week in, like, San Francisco or Miami or wherever the fuck. He had a team, and a duty, and a place to sleep that wasn’t the room he and Josie had shared through most of high school. He spent a lot of nights away, and a lot of nights, you know, fighting fires, as well as more than one Sunday evening playing Fortnite in his room at the Firehouse, having told the family group chat that he’d ended up scheduled to work.

Sundays were always Suzanne household family nights, but the first Sunday of the month went unspoken as mandatory. Tour schedules were altered, work dinners postponed, on-call days asked off or traded, and if Declan truly was set to be across the country, the answer always came, “Well then, how about Monday instead?” Now that they were between seasons, there wasn’t any point in trying to get out of it.

Declan had been told to arrive at the house at 5:00, which meant that at 5:26 he found himself on the doorstep, armed with his sole collared shirt and a tin-foiled platter of Josh Butt’s famous Swedish meatballs. He rang the doorbell and scratched the back of his calf with the laces of his tennis shoe as he waited, hearing the loud bark of a dog on the other side. 

When the door opened the first thing Declan heard was, “Tinker Bell, down!” There was Sue Suzanne, two fingers linked through the collar of her black lab, holding the door open with her free hand. “Come on in, honey, sorry about Tink.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Declan said, stepping inside.

“No worries, honey, I told everyone else to be here at 5:30.” Declan moved to bring the meatballs to the kitchen, but Sue stopped him. “Take your shoes off before you come inside, honey, I don’t want you tracking mud inside. Margaret,” Sue called over her shoulder into the kitchen, “can you come grab the food from your brother before the dog knocks him flat over?”

“Sure thing, Mom.” Maggie appeared at Sue’s side, fashionable as ever in a turtleneck and black dress pants. She patted Tinker Bell on the head and took the platter from his hands. “Hey, Dec.”

“Hey, Mags.” Declan kneeled down to untie his shoes, immediately also getting a dog in his face as Sue let go of its collar. “Hey, Tinker Bell. Couldn’t you have waited to let her go until I had my shoes off?” 

Sue let out a loud laugh, tossing her black and grey hair. “You can handle her, honey. I’m just a frail old woman, I can’t control her.” 

“Too frail for the dog but not too frail to do live reporting from a riot, makes sense.” Sue turned to face the living room, where Josie was sat cross-legged on the carpet. Josie was small, with short, dark hair and a lip piercing. She was in the middle of painting the nails of Declan’s niece, Adriana, but had looked up from her work to yell over at them. “You just want an excuse to get dog spit on the face of my darling baby brother, Mom.” 

Sue laughed again. “You’ll never prove anything,” she said, turning to walk into the kitchen.

Declan padded over to the chair near where Josie was sitting. “You know I’m only two years younger than you, right?”

“Being a baby brother is less about age and more about energy.” Josie raised her eyes from the little hand resting on her knee to the face of the five year old sat in front of her. “Isn’t that right, Adriana?” 

Adriana nodded very seriously. “Once a baby, always a baby.”

Josie laughed loudly, only now looking up at Declan. “You heard her, Dec.”

~

Dinner was always loud. Not that strange, really, at a table of 8 people spanning ages 61 to 2 and a half, but Declan was always a little surprised. His headphones helped (it had been years since his family had expected him to take them off at the table), but still. 

“Are you listening to me, Dec?”

“Yeah,” Declan lied.

Laura had brown hair up in a bun and was wearing a plain black t-shirt and jeans, an outfit Declan knew she kept in her car in case she didn’t have time to go home and change after a shift at the hospital. She laughed a little and rolled her eyes, which definitely didn’t make Declan feel any better. “I was asking how things have been at the Firehouse. You guys just got some new players, right?”

Declan nodded. “It’s been, um… a weird couple weeks.”

“I’ll say,” Maggie’s husband, Diego chimed in from Laura’s other side. He was wearing a pink polo shirt and had their two year old son, Gabe, sat in his lap. “All that peanut bullshit, too.”

“Language!” Sue called from the head of the table.

“My bad, Sue. What did you think of all that stuff, though? I have to imagine that was a pretty stressful game to watch, I mean, knowing some of the players and everything.”

Declan stared down at his plate. “I didn’t watch it, actually. I was on shift when it happened.”

“Oh, damn- I mean, dang,” Diego said, receiving a glare from Sue. “Fires don’t stop, I guess. That’s pretty unlucky, though.”

“Yeah. Unlucky.”

The truth was, Declan had requested to work the night of the Internet Series Final, had traded shifts with Rosa once it became clear that the Crabs would be playing. Their games just felt... different without Tillman playing, even though that whole incineration thing had mostly worked out in the end. He had expected a fairly quiet shift, mostly just some house calls and kitchen fires.

Declan rubbed at the back of his neck. “I actually, uh, ended up being the one who found the nuts. Our new players, I mean.” 

Laura knit her brows. “What do you mean, found?”

“Oh, they, uh, fell from the sky, like, uh…”

“Meteorites?” Adriana suggested. She was sat on the other side of the table between Sue and Maggie, who was currently cutting up her piece of casserole into bite-sized pieces. Declan hadn’t realized she’d been listening. 

“Like meteorites,” Declan agreed, “but person-sized. Or, I mean, like meteorites if meteorites were big peanuts with people in them.”

Now the room was quiet, with the rest of the table focused on him too. “So you just, what,” Josie said as she discreetly fed a Swedish meatball to the dog, “strapped these huge peanuts to the top of the firetruck?”

“Oh, uh, no, they were out by the time I got over there. One of them tried to shoot me, actually.” There was a general shout from the adults at the table, and Declan clamped his hands over his headphones while Gabe started to cry in Diego’s lap. “Not with a gun! Peanut angel energy ray shit!”

Sue made a frustrated gesture. “I wish you would tell us these things when they happened, Declan.”

“I was on shift anyway, I-I would have been fine, Mx. Chicago would have protected me-”

Laura was rubbing a hand over her face. “You need to be more careful, Dec-”

“Well, I couldn’t just leave them there!” 

“You absolutely could have, Dec!” Maggie said.

“Children!, please!” Sue said. “Declan, I’m sorry for raising my voice. Girls, apologize to your brother, please.”

Laura sighed. “Sorry for yelling, Declan.”

Maggie nodded. “Sorry.”

Declan’s cheeks burned. “You don’t have to apologize, it’s not a big deal-”

“Yes, they do, Declan, they knew better.” There was a pause, and Sue gestured to Josie. “Well?”

“Well what? I wasn’t yelling at him.”

“You were, ah,” Sue said, waving a hand in the air as she looked for the words, “contributing to a negative environment.”

“How!?” Sue just stared back at Josie until she sighed. “Declan, my darling sibling who I love with all my heart, I severely apologize for contributing to this dinner table being a negative environment and I only hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

“I think you mean sincerely apologize, Jos,” Maggie said.

Josie shook her head. “I severely apologize.”

Sue rolled her eyes. “Could you also do it sincerely?”

“I’m sincere about it, Mom, but the severe part’s more important.”

Sue leveled a serious look at Josie. It was the kind of look Declan would hate to be on the other side of, but Josie held it just fine until Sue rolled her eyes and chuckled. “What did I do to get such rotten children?” she asked, smiling.

“Must have been pretty bad,” Diego joked.

“Hey, you married into this mess,” Laura said, elbowing him

Maggie laughed. “Yeah, babe, what does that say about you?

Declan sank back into his chair as his family joked around him. His cheeks burned. Why did that have to be such a big scene? This was, like, exactly why he didn’t say anything about it.

Tinker Bell seemed to sense he was upset, coming to rest her head in his lap. Either that, or she was begging for table scraps - Declan had always had a hard time resisting her. He pat her on the head and fed her another meatball.

“Hey Dec.” When Declan looked up, Josie had a mischievous look on her face. She waved her fork in the air, all casual. “Didn’t that guy you were seeing, like, come back from the dead, or whatever?”

Sue’s eyebrows shot way up. Oh shit. “What guy?”

Declan was mortified, even more so as he turned to see the gears turn in his brother-in-law’s head. “Wait,” Diego said, “came back from the dead? Declan, were you dating Tillman Fucking Henderson?”

Sue called out, “Language!” at the same moment that Declan covered his face and said, “Dating might be too strong of a word.”

Josie let out a small delighted laugh. “Oh, so you were hooking up with Tillman Henderson?”

“Can we please watch our tones around my children?” Maggie sighed.

“Declan, how come Josie knew about this and Mags and I didn’t?” Laura threw her hands in the air. “I mean, Mom I get, but Mags and I could keep it quiet.”

Sue looked almost comically outraged. “What do you mean, you get not telling me? I would have been, uh, chill about it.”

Maggie laughed. “Mom, you invited my high school boyfriend over for family dinner when he picked me up for our first date.”

“Well, that was a long time ago, honey, maybe I’ve changed!”

“If you’ve changed, why did you try to ask out the Jewel-Osco cashier for me last week?”

“Well, Josie, I-” Sue sputtered. “She was cute! She could have been my future daughter-in-law, you never know!”

“I do know, Mom, because we dated in high school!” That got a broad laugh from the table, after which Josie leaned forward to speak across Declan. “Lo, the only reason I knew is because I ran into them after my show in Baltimore last year.”

It never rained on the arenas during games, but outside of the Crabitat Baltimore was covered with a steady drizzle. The Firefighters had lost that game, Declan remembered, and badly, their fourth loss in a set of 6 games they played against the Crabs, but everyone was in a good mood anyway - the Firefighters and the Crabs just got along like that. Post-game drinks weren’t usually Declan’s thing, but he was going because Tillman was going, and Tillman was going because nobody wanted him there and he never missed an opportunity to be a spiteful bastard.

Declan had spotted Josie before she saw the rest of them, watched her hauling a guitar case and an amp out of the venue next door when they got to the bar. Declan was just trying to figure out how to make sure she didn’t see him when Lou elbowed him in the side.

“Declan, isn’t that your sister?” she asked.

Declan sighed. “Yeah, I think so.”

It turned out that Josie and her band had been planning to go to the bar anyway, so it didn’t matter that Lou had immediately shouted to her and waved a hand in the air. She was extremely excited to run into Declan and the Firefighters, because she was, y’know, a good sibling who wouldn’t try to avoid him if she saw him in public.

Declan knew that it was a good idea to keep her and Tillman apart, and succeeded at that goal for exactly no time. Tillman, for all that he pretended not to want Declan around, followed him around like a baby chick. Declan usually found it pretty flattering, but today it was only annoying, especially when it resulted in the three of them crammed into the inside of a booth. 

“How was y’all’s game today?” Josie had asked.

“Good for us, shitty for them,” Tillman had replied before Declan could get a word in. “No surprise there.”

Declan’s face burned. “You’re such an asshole, Tillman.”

“And you think it’s sexy, how embarrassing for you.”

“Can we not talk about Tillman?” Declan asked. “We’re not really, like, talking right now.”

Declan got a number of sympathetic noises from most of his family, but Josie just leaned back in her chair. “Good,” she said, “he seemed like a piece of shit.”

Declan stood abruptly. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” he announced, quickly walking out.

Declan leaned against the bathroom sink, breathing deeply and pulling out his phone. Now that he was out of the room he felt silly for having had to leave.

ButtsLaw847: How’s dinner going?  
DecPOG: alright i guess  
DecPOG: apparently hearing i was almost shot is pretty stressful for people  
ButtsLaw847: Well, yeah.  
ButtsLaw847: I know that you would have been okay and I still didn’t like hearing about it.  
ButtsLaw847: They just worry about you. Caring about people with dangerous jobs is hard on people.  
DecPOG: well fuck its hard on me too  
ButtsLaw847: You signed up for it.  
ButtsLaw847: That came out harsher than I meant it to. It’s not your fault, and I’m sorry if they’re being hard on you, but if they care they’re going to worry.  
DecPOG: i dont want them to worry i want them to be proud of me  
ButtsLaw847: They can do both!

There was a knock at the bathroom door. “Declan, honey,” came his mom’s voice, “when you’re done in there can you help Josie with dishes?” Declan tried not to feel guilty, flushing the toilet and running the tap in hopes of making it seem like he, you know, came in here for a real reason.

Declan walked into the kitchen as Josie was bringing in the last of the dishes. “You were done eating, right?”

“Yeah.” 

There was an awkward silence as Josie went to fill up the sink. “You still like drying?”

“Yeah.”

Josie rolled up the sleeves of her flannel and sighed as Declan settled against the counter. “I’m sorry I talked about Tillman that way, Dec. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a dick, but that wasn’t fair of me.”

Declan shrugged. “It’s okay.”

Josie shook her head and handed Declan a plate to dry. “No it isn’t, dude. No matter what I think of the guy, I shouldn’t talk shit about someone you care about. Especially with the timing of everything, dude, I obviously wasn’t thinking, but… that had to have been pretty recent, right? I mean, shit, he was still dead a month ago.”

“Yeah, um, it’s... been a weird couple weeks.”

“So you said,'' Josie joked, her face immediately fading into an apologetic one. “Sorry, dude, I shouldn’t give you such a hard time.” She handed him another plate. “So, what happened?”

“What?”

“What happened with Tillman? Y’know, if you want to talk about it.”

“I don’t know,” Declan sighed. “I guess… I really don’t know what happened. I mean, he died, obviously, but then he came back and everyone was pissed and then I texted him and he just… never responded? I had to hear about it on the news, apparently he’s on the Shoe Thieves now?” Josie was clearly biting back words. “Just go ahead and say it, Jo.”

“That fucking sucks, Dec, fuck that guy.” 

“Come on, Jo-”

“I’m serious, Declan!” Josie set the dish she was working on down and turned towards Declan. She looked... well. She looked serious. “That sucks, dude, you don’t deserve that. If I came back from the dead you’d be the first person I texted, swear to god… okay I might text Mom first since I live here but you’d be next, I wouldn’t let you find out from the fucking news, dude.” Josie went back to her dish. 

“Yeah, but you’re my sister.” Declan returned a set of forks to the silverware drawer. “Tillman doesn’t owe me anything.”

“He owes you basic human decency, Declan. How’d you two even end up together?”

“We weren’t toge-”

Josie waved a hand. “You know what I mean.”

Declan sighed. “It just kind of happened? I guess? The Crabs and us have always gotten along, Tilly used to game with Edric and I after our teams played each other, and that somehow turned into us..” Declan covered his face with a hand and braced for impact. “...making out in the El Camino after games.”

That shocked a laugh out of Josie. “Oh, wow, okay, spare me the details, Dec.” She handed him another plate. “That was it, though?”

“Yeah, pretty much. It wasn’t anything, I just-” Declan turned away to put the stack of dry plates in the cabinet. “I just, um, liked him. And he liked me too, even if he never said it, dude, he was up my ass texting me all the time. He liked me how I was.” Declan rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “He was a dick though, you’re right, I-I don’t know why I want anything to do with him.”

“I think I get it.”

Declan turned around to see Josie leaned against the counter, a soft look on her face. “You do?”

She nodded. “Yeah. He was a dick, but I get it. ...You know we love you, right?”

“Yeah,” Declan said, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Even if you quit and left the Firefighters tomorrow, that wouldn’t matter.”

“I literally can’t quit, Jos.”

Josie laughed. “I know, dude, if you could I’d be pushing for it. My point is, I love my splorts star baby brother as much as I love my baby brother who spends all weekend watching anime and the basement.

Declan nodded. “Thanks, Jos.”

She smiled back at him. “Don’t mention it, asshole. And, for the record, you deserve so much better than Tillman Fucking Henderson, like, so much better.” She paused, then laughed to herself. “If you ever get his new address, send it to us, Lo and Mags and I’ll go beat his ass.”

From the next room came Laura’s voice. “Hell yea-heck yeah we will!”

Declan ran a hand over his face. “Have you guys been listening this whole time?”

“Not the whole time.”

~

The sun had been on its way down when Declan had arrived, which meant it was well past dark by the time he made it back to the Firehouse. His mom had, as expected, tried to talk him into staying after they finished their movie (Cars - Maggie’s kids’ choice), but there was truly nothing he wanted more than a night in his own bed.

Josh Butt was in the kitchen pouring themself a glass of water when Declan walked in. They smiled when they saw him. “Hey Declan, how was dinner?”

“Pretty, uh, pretty good, actually. Yeah.”

Butt’s smile widened. “I’m glad.” They paused. “Did you, uh, bring back my platter?”

Declan froze. “What platter?”

“The platter I gave you for the meatballs?” The answer must have been clear on Declan’s face because Butt laughed to themself. “No worries, Declan, I can swing by and get it tomorrow, I have to go to Schaumburg anyway.”

“Why?”

“Caleb, Edric and I are going to Ikea.” They let out a long-suffering sigh. “The two of them broke the bookshelf while filming a Tiktok.”

There was a noise of outrage from the next room over. “We said we were sorry!” came Edric’s voice.

“I’m not mad, I just want you to stop breaking furniture!” Butt ran a hand over their face and smiled a tired smile. “I’m going to bed,” they said. “Glad everything worked out. Night Declan, love you!”

Declan smiled. “Love you!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Come say hi on twitter @waltztangocache


End file.
